Microsoft at CSUN

Google At CSUN

Amongst other presentations, Google introduced the beta of Voice Access which allows a user to control their google device simply by using their voice for basic navigation (“Go back” “Go home”), interact with items on the current screen (“scroll Down), and voice dictation.

Access help by saying “What can I say”.

Once Voice Access is downloaded, activate it from Settings, Accessibility, Voice Access and run through the tutorial.

Amazon at CSUN

Amazon has done more work on their latest Amazon Fire tablet running Fire OS 5, introducing their own screen reader: Voice view which has a number of changes to that of the default screen reader in Android: Talkback including Jog. You will still need to use BrailleBack to support Braille displays.

The Dot Smart Watch

The prototype of this watch was shown based around 4 Braille cells which are scrollable to read notifications from your iPhone or Android device. The watch will also come with its own app to allow setup of the watch for such things as what apps do you wish the watch to notify you about. The watch is due to ship in August with a possible price of $290 US.

Quite a few Braille products announced/shown at CSUN

This seemed to be the year for announcing/showing new Braille products including the ElBraille, BrailleNote Touch, Orbit, B2G, InsideOne, the Commute, NeoBraille, and the Dot Pad (same company for the Dot Smart Watch).

ElBraille

Modular Braille Tablet: Windows 10 dock, JAWS, and Focus 14. Beauty of this system, is that if you already have JAWS and a Focus 14, you can just buy the Windows 10 dock: a fantastic idea.

There will be an English page at the following link at the End of March:

Apple also released an update to Apple watch 2.2 to support multiple Apple watch’s on one iPhone which is great for me, and they also released OS x 10.11.4 with secure Notes support as well.

Posted demos on 9.3:

If you go to my podcast site, you can pick up 5 demos in respect to iOS 9.3: Night Shift, 3d touch on default apps, Notes password or touch id protection, offline voice dictation, and 4 finger flick left or right app switching.

News From Freedom Scientific

FSCast 121

Interesting development, you will get notified by a JAWS 17 update due out on March 15 when there is a new FSCast to listen to: a bit odd, but makes sense from a marketing point of view.

iOS Training

In more FS news, on March 4 FS announced a iOs training bundle with a daisy book training tutorial bundle with a Plextalk Pocket daisy player: not sure yet if this is available in Austrlia.

No news on yet when Quantum Technology may be bringing this in.

The training starts with an introduction to touch-screen devices, including basic navigation gestures and setting up an iOS device for the first time. This is followed by modules on navigating the Home screen, opening and closing apps, and making and receiving phone calls with an iPhone®. It then progresses to lessons for specific apps, including:

VoiceOver and iOS settings

Using Siri®

Using iCloud and iTunes®

Using a traditional Bluetooth® keyboard or refreshable Braille displayand Safari

$599 Us, and not sure if currently available in Australia.

Update to Openbook

Update to OpenBook V9 with OCR improvements and the ability to use Onyx or Topaz video magnifiers as cameras instead of the Pearl.